Stop Me If You Heard This...

This is from our South St./Battery Pk. Expedition (Manhattan, 7/22/07), or Day 2 of Mocha and ‘Nilla’s overnight expedition. We were supposed to wake up in some charming beach-front motel, a little hung over but looking forward to greasy eggs, some good coffee and another breezy day scrounging jokes in the sand. Unfortunately there wasn’t a single room available in any of the beach-front motels; not that we could afford it anyway. So instead I woke up on Mocha’s living room floor staring at a cat turd, the traffic noise outside a far cry from the gentle swish of the waves you heard behind the Hamptons jokes. With a mere 8 hours in front of us to finish off this expedition we needed to stay close to home, thus the South Street Seaport/ Battery Park expedition. It wasn’t the beach, but we could see water, and we ended up with over 40 jokes, an excellent take considering the cat turd.

Allow me to turn your attention to our collection of jokes told in a foreign language! Turns out the rest of world dabbles in this little thing we at StopMe like to call "telling jokes." Now if you want dead air, just tune into the moment after a tellers from this collection drop the punchline on us uni-languaged USA-ers. Since it's socially quite lame to fake laugh when you don't speak the language (think about it), we can only smile sheepishly and offer our weak thanks for the diversity street cred. Sometimes we are blessed with a translation, but the only thing worse than not getting one is getting an ATTEMPTED translation that fizzles into general awkwardness. Case in point:

I just love getting jokes from people on the job. There's just something so Mr. Roger's Neighborhood about bumping into a real NYC native in his City Sights jumper, ready to share with us kiddies a little piece of his "world"— a joke about a guy who pisses vodka and leverages this oddity to get his wife to blow him! Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be... my neighbor!

I just had to advertise how much of a moron I am.Her: Pete and Repeat are in a boat. Pete jumps off, who's left?Me (expert Joke-ologist): I don't know-- who?The lesson here is if you rely on other people to make your joke work, even professionals, you're just going to end up as a filthy rich blond on a yacht.

As I was perusing our Hamptons jokes I couldn't believe I hadn't posted this one, told from a bike (well, a dude ON a bike)! We were just getting out of our first of several Mercedes-lovin' towns when we were pleased to find ourselves behind this self-propelled, earth-friendly gent. As we passed I tapped the brakes and Mocha, perceptive team player that he is, rolled down the glass and popped the StopMe question, "Excuse me, sir. Do you have any Grey Poupon?" Actually, you know the question as well as I do, and besides, Mocha doesn't get any intuition points because I was screaming, "See if he has any jokes-- get him!!" The guy pedaled a half-dozen times, deep in thought, then Mocha got the camera going just as he came up with the Turtle Mugging Joke. A guy on the go telling a joke about two turtle muggers moving way too fast! Pure joketry (that's joke combined with poetry for you novices).Just by virtue of being on the bike he joins an elite group of StopMe joke-tellers who deliver from weird places or in weird ways. But even without the prop, it's a very worthy contribution.

Something about a yarmulke that just kinda scares me off when we go around with our frivolous request for a joke. But we were so pleasantly surprised by this exchange, which includes a translation that somehow makes this old third grade classic sound like a wise old adage.

Mocha and I had finally made it to the beach after hours of traffic and a lukewarm reception in the rather generic tourist towns along the way (sorry, Hamptons!). We took off our shoes and strolled along the water's edge, hand in hand, just being with each other. Mocha wasn't ready to take the relationship to the next level, however, so we started asking for jokes. This guy has a great Vince Vaughn vibe and seemed to be waiting for some dudes to come by with their camera looking for jokes, even if they were pretty gay. His kids shouting into the camera is a nice exclamation point at the end of a very solid joke, and they go on to tell their own jokes.

Ah, the children. Those little people with such big... heads.Turns out the Hamptons sun jogged the jokemories of the children, as the under-10 crowd makes up a good portion of this expeditions take. Now we all know the appeal of the "jokes by kids" collection is not the jokes themselves, but the charm of the tellers. The false starts, the stage fright, the oh-so-cute kid-like things those kids will do. In the case of the Smile Joke below, it's the "Hey that's not a joke" element that has us all "Awwww!", whereas when adults try this I just get pissed off. I felt bad that I bullied him into a format he wasn't comfortable with ("You say 'knock-knock' and I'll say 'Who's There'")-- not sure what my problem was-- but my sense is he's gone on to a successful life anyway. Just not as a comedian.

Mocha and Vanilla’s overnight expedition! What’s summer in NYC without sitting in LIE traffic during prime beach hours, wondering why the hell you didn’t get an earlier start? The expedition starts off in the little tourist towns (lots of Izods and ice cream) en route to the waves and ends up on the beach itself, with lots of stop-n-go traffic in between. After a day collecting jokes from rich people, though, we couldn’t get a room anywhere and ended up driving back to Manhattan in the middle of the night, crashing at Mocha’s apartment, our dreams of waking up to a Long Island Sound sunrise smothered by a crappy aerobed.

Folks, we have a real treat today for all none of you devoted blog readers: a Guest Poster, Karen (who shall be referred to by her StopMe handle, Kookie-Dough). Aside from being a devoted StopMe fan, she is also my pregnant sister, and despite her resistance is sure to get up off her fat ass and step across the room any minute now.Well, I have to say, when "Vanilla" asked me to choose an ice cream flavor just moments ago, I was actually picturing a Jetson-like apparatus that would make the tasty treat materialize in front of my "fat ass". But, alas, I am now known as "Kookie-Dough," which doesn't do a whole lot for to help with the fat ass, bloated feelings I've been having lately. I must say, I'm totally fascinated by bikinis and especially by people who tell jokes while wearing them. I mean, is it me or is it hard not to look at the bikini-wearers' breasts? What's interesting is that when we're dressing at home and we have just our underwear and bra on, we (and maybe I should be using "I-statements" here...) feel the need to cover ourselves with clothes--a shirt, maybe some pants, what have you. But with a bikini, all bets are off. You put on essentially the same articles of clothing (often with less coverage--have you ever seen maternity underwear?!) and yet it's perfectly acceptable to leave the house, see a parade, tell a joke... food for thought, eh? Speaking of food, how about that ice cream?World's Shortest JokeBald JokeScrew Joke

The funnest part of StopMe is the variety of folks we stop. To quote a great man, "Humor is universal, blah blah blah." The fact is, I'm a guy who still won't answer his own phone, so severe is my aversion toward human interaction. And yet, I get a huge kick out of spending the day soliciting jokes from all kinds of strangers: freaks, wall streeters, skaters, trannies and truckers. There's a joker in every group (even chess players!), and it turns out pin-up girls travel with a pair! That's right, pin-up girls aren't just for posters anymore. Since the 1940s, pin-up girls have developed that all-important third dimension, plus a nifty sense of humor. The three we ran into at the parade were attracting a whole lot of attention (as you can see at the beginning of Retarded Boy Joke) but they were nice enough to tell us a few jokes and educate us on the finer points of authentic pin-up living. Did you know pin-up girls don't have pin-up guy boyfriends (they have greaser boyfriends), but do have Betty Crocker flavored toothpaste?Retarded Boy JokeDry.....Martini Joke

Turns out the reason Mocha and me and Chocolat keep going, "Huh?" is we're pushing 40. That's right, our fellow joke-ologists at Washington University have discovered old people just don't get it, or at least don't get jokes more often than their young counterparts. Click here for the full scoop. In support of this conclusion, you'll notice the average age of a StopMe joke-teller is about 14 (ok, it's higher, but from the perspsective of us graying, flabby late-30s folk, yer all just a bunch of kids!), and the numbers in our Jokes Told By the Elderly collection are less than healthy (thus the inclusion of several middle-agers who are being forced to stand in).Who knew all this jokesperimentation was going on at Washington U.? Showing unfinished Dilbert cartoons to unsuspecting elderly? Asking a college kid to guess Lucy Ricardo's next line? Wonder what other sick things those people are doing in the name of science.

Ok, we admit it— sometimes that wacky, goofy, frivolous, jokey spontaneity you've come to love about StopMe is just a little staged. For instance, this woman told us this cop-bashing joke at first not knowing she was standing behind several cops, but since they weren't in the shot in the original take she. When we mentioned the gaggle of nearby cops, though, she didn't bat and eye and agreed to tell it again standing even closer to one of her targets. The brave girl even had the cinematic instinct to duck away after the punch line for the full effect. Nice touch.

We've been told pirate jokes before but this pirate girl took it fAAAARRRRRRRRRRRther than anybody! We're going to have to make a pirate joke button on the main site, but Chocolat's so lame it'll probably never happen. In the mean time, pirate joke fans, just book mAAARRRRRRRk this page.

We've been playing with various ideas for developing the site. Some are clamoring for more behind the scenes while thousands of others are pushing for more stuff exploring the nature of humor and the ways StopMe joke-ologists expose the funny-vibe (sorry for all these technical terms) of a given time and place. Then we stumbled upon Lenny's Britain and his Joke Booth experiment and realized, Welp, Been Done. And been done pretty good, I might say. So for those of you interested in the sociological aspect of this grand experiment, check it out. The analysis may be from a British perspective but humor is universal blah, blah, blah. In the mean time, if you want the story of three guys on the verge of a collective midlife crisis trekking around NYC bumming jokes, well, keep it here.

Sometimes it's hard to believe they didn't see us coming miles away. This guy was hanging with his biking friends, who you'll see at the end of the video, but rattles off this very complicated joke as if he were backstage at a dirty joke festival. We all know someone who can do this. He's the guy at the party who you plan to can't stand but end up chuckling at his antics. Or, hey, maybe that guy is you. If so, congratulations, as I planned to can't stand you and you won me over. I mean, I don't want to get stuck in an elevator with you or even, really, sit next to you at the dinner party. But from a distance, across a room, I'll laugh at your Timbuktu Joke and probably stumble all over myself trying to tell it to some other introvert the next day.

Oh man, we really screwed up. In this age of Google searches, short attention spans and just way too many choices on the web, anybody with less than 7 drinks in his system is gonna keep the name of his site short, simple and to the point. Our approach? Let's think of a really long name where thewordsallruntogether and no one will remember it because there's a thousand ways to get it wrong ("what was it again, Stop Me If You Heard That One...Before?"). And hey, let's NOT put the word "joke" in the title so people won't know what the site is about until they actually GO THERE! What an intriguing MYSTERY we've created, enticing more and more people who google "jokes" to wonder what sites they're missing that aren't coming up because the word joke isn't in the title! Sure there're nice things about the name. It's something my grandfather used to say before launching into some joke I didn't get even after hearing it about a hundred times, since he never did stop ("Two guys walking down the street. One says to the other, 'You know what time it is?' His friend shows him his watch and says 'There it is." The other guy says, "Damned if it ain't!"). And it's the name, kind of, of an old radio show where people send in jokes and win prizes if the show's panelists don't know it. That's charming! That's quaint! But quaint never got anyone anywhere on the web, and quaint is about all we've managed to be with "Stop Me If You Heard This." Dare we change it? We own the url, TheJokeQuest.com, a much more accurate, catchy, if less quaint, name. What say? Send us your votes, suggestions, thoughts and undecipherable jokes your grandfather used to tell. We'll stay up late pouring over all the emails and letters-- Chinese food containers, the whole bit-- until at some ungodly morning hour we'll look each other knowingly and remove our glasses, rub our eyes (well, Mocha will take out his contacts anyway). We'll all start laughing because there on the table, as clear as the sky, will be the name so perfect we can only remove our glasses, rub our eyes and laugh. All over again. In the mean time, in honor of our very long name, let us leave you with The World's Shortest Joke. (Warning: It's as bad as our name.)

In the last post I touched on what one stands to learn about oneself in the process of listening to a joke. Then there's what you learn about your friends. Let me introduce you to my good friend Mocha, whom I have known since we fronted a band way back in college called "But The Windows Are Closed." He's the guy holding the door open for you, giving you his seat on the subway and asking if your parents are busy tonight because maybe they'd want to join us. Watch him in "Bumbling Mocha Medley" and you'll know exactly what I mean. Then listen to him cackle with delight when the Pussy Pie teller drops the crudest of punchlines and you'll wonder, as I do, Who the hell is this guy?

What's up with the blind animal jokes at the Mermaid Parade? It's funny because Mocha and I have been telling everyone we heard this one joke-set (as we joke-ologists say) "like 5 or 6 times" at the Parade. Then we were coincidently watching Last Comic Standing at the same time (with different wives, however) and the same blind fish joke popped up on the screen before it cut to a commercial (holy shit!), after which the Mermaid number became—I noticed— "6 or 7 times." Well, ol' Vanilla here went back into the footage to craft together a little medley, so inspired was he, but lo and behold we're a pack of liars. There's, uh, not so many, even if you include Mocha telling the fish joke with the pen in his mouth. I know he's reading this (if he even reads this damn thing; please tell me you read this thing dude-- at least you!!), I know he's going "I really thought there was another one... wait, wasn't there another guy—" No, dude— no guy. No woman. Not even a stray Mermaid or a Gorilla or a Pirate telling this joke other than what you're about to see. If I'm wrong, I promise to act out the joke in my underwear in Coney Island next week. Like anyone'd notice.

Chocolat recently stood up at one of those work retreats where you get to learn the dreary life stories of your colleagues and explained he runs a joke site with two college friends. "Just don't ask me to tell you a joke," he said, "I either can't remember or I just don't understand them."He's absolutely right— the hardest thing about telling people you run a joke site is that everyone assumes you've got some great jokes ready to go. The pressure is enormous, and it's clear why so many have died in this line of work.But the truth is there's around two jokes in every expedition I laugh at (without faking) and one of those I remember for about a week, telling everyone who'll listen. Since my circle of friends and family is small enough to fit in a bathtub (stacked, standing, cut up into body-parts, any which way you'd like to fit my circle of friends and family in your bathtub) certain members of this troupe, such as my wife, will hear me tell this joke three or four times to outsiders who somehow stray my way before scurrying away in search of people with not so much body odor. When I think about the jokes I like best, most of them are either misogynistic, crass or just plain sick and wrong. I'd like to say this little reflection exercise taught me something about myself, but really it just confirmed some ugly truths I live with every minute of every day. Anyway, here's the Mermaid joke I'm ashamed to love. Hope you hate yourself for laughing at it as much as I do.